Level(s): Grade 9 to 12

Overview

This lesson and all associated documents (handouts, overheads, backgrounders) is available in an easy-print, pdf kit version.   To open the lesson kit for printing, click here.   To print only this page, use the "printable version" link at the top of the page.

This is the fourth of five lessons designed to teach students to think critically about the way aboriginal peoples and visible minorities are portrayed in the press.

"Fact Versus Opinion" begins with students discussing the difference between fact and opinion. Students then apply what they have learned to an opinion piece selected by the teacher, and then an opinion piece that they have selected.

Outcomes

Students will:

• recognize bias and value judgements in written work
• distinguish between fact and opinion
• understand the reasons why bias might occur in news reports
• understand the underpinnings of fact and of opinion

Preparation and Materials

• Select and photocopy a column, editorial, letter to the editor or opinion piece that deals with a diversity-related issue (i.e., immigration, recognizing religious holidays, funding for cultural festivals, multicultural funding).
• Make enough copies for the entire class.

If students don’t have copies from previous lessons, photocopy the handouts:

• The Editorial Page (educational handout) 
• Letter to the Editor (educational handout)

Note:

As an optional warm-up activity to this lesson, have students complete the MNet worksheet: Wolves: Fact or Opinion? and then compare their answers to the Wolves: Fact or Opinion? Answer Sheet.

Procedure

Introduction:

In order to break down stereotypes, people have to know the difference between what is true about an ethnocultural minority group and what is someone's opinion. Newspapers tend to contain both fact and opinion, often with little distinction between the two. Although the writer's opinion should never appear in a news story, it is allowed in other parts of the newspaper – in the editorial pages, columns, or letters to the editor. After working to distinguish between fact and opinion, students should be better equipped to reject stereotypes and educate themselves about the realities surrounding ethnocultural minority groups.

• Discuss the difference between fact and opinion, referring back to earlier handouts, The Editorial Page and Letter to the Editor.

Activity

• Distribute copies of the chosen "Opinion Piece"
• Ask students to try to separate the facts from the opinions:
  • What are the facts?
  • What are the opinions?
  • How can you tell them apart?
• Assign notetakers to write down all the facts on one side of the board, and all the opinions on the other.
• Work with the class to determine which facts are accurate, and based on a provable fact, and which are false, and based on an "opinion."

Assignment:

• Have students select a column, letter, or editorial of their own.
• For homework, students will deconstruct the opinion piece they have chosen based on the criteria above.

Evaluation

• Student analysis of an opinion piece.